I'm still frustrated with Carroll's insouciance regarding game starts. There's so much of his philosophy that's on point that I hate seeing weaknesses.

I also don't enjoy the numerous sarcastic comments on various Seahawks forums about Wilson's 2 for 6 outing. "Start T-jack" they say, (not so) wittily, or "Quarterback controversy!" I wonder if the laughter sounds a little loud in their ears as it does in mine? Perhaps we can acknowledge that one bad start after another after another is an unhappy pattern? And I'm not talking about Wilson, I'm talking about the offense's success as a whole early in games. Wilson's stats are just a reflection of it.

Yes, it's preseason, yes Wilson is going to have better stats, yes Unger was out. Nevertheless, I'd rather have seen Wilson do what Kap did against the much stronger Denver defense. Even with a vanilla scheme, I'd expect a possibly record-setting dominant Super Bowl contender's 1st team offense to smash the blitzing Chargers 1st team. Or at least, I'd definitely feel better if I had seen it. Not that I feel bad, but my 99% confidence has dropped to 98%.

After the game, Carroll said he wasn't worried about it. I hope he's at least very slightly worried about it. One thing I loved about the 2005 team is how often they'd come down on the opening drive and score a TD. Carroll doesn't seem to care about this at all. "It's not how you start, it's how you finish!" False! It's both!

One of Carroll's core philosophies is making the opponent one dimensional. One great way to do that would be to score earlier and oftener so our secondary (and hopefully improved pass rush) can tee off.

If the staff only cares about finishes, it will only get good finishes. (Not that, to be perfectly honest, we've been so hot at those either, recently). Only caring about finishes definitely reduces our chances of making it through a whole division race, then play-offs, then Super Bowl. It definitely leaves more up to chance.

How about a new slogan, like "Start fast, finish strong"? Although I'm open to something even punchier.

formido wrote:I'm still frustrated with Carroll's insouciance regarding game starts. There's so much of his philosophy that's on point that I hate seeing weaknesses.

I also don't enjoy the numerous sarcastic comments on various Seahawks forums about Wilson's 2 for 6 outing. "Start T-jack" they say, (not so) wittily, or "Quarterback controversy!" I wonder if the laughter sounds a little loud in their ears as it does in mine? Perhaps we can acknowledge that one bad start after another after another is an unhappy pattern? And I'm not talking about Wilson, I'm talking about the offense's success as a whole early in games. Wilson's stats are just a reflection of it.

Yes, it's preseason, yes Wilson is going to have better stats, yes Unger was out. Nevertheless, I'd rather have seen Wilson do what Kap did against the much stronger Denver defense. Even with a vanilla scheme, I'd expect a possibly record-setting dominant Super Bowl contender's 1st team offense to smash the blitzing Chargers 1st team. Or at least, I'd definitely feel better if I had seen it. Not that I feel bad, but my 99% confidence has dropped to 98%.

After the game, Carroll said he wasn't worried about it. I hope he's at least very slightly worried about it. One thing I loved about the 2005 team is how often they'd come down on the opening drive and score a TD. Carroll doesn't seem to care about this at all. "It's not how you start, it's how you finish!" False! It's both!

One of Carroll's core philosophies is making the opponent one dimensional. One great way to do that would be to score earlier and oftener so our secondary (and hopefully improved pass rush) can tee off.

If the staff only cares about finishes, it will only get good finishes. (Not that, to be perfectly honest, we've been so hot at those either, recently). Only caring about finishes definitely reduces our chances of making it through a whole division race, then play-offs, then Super Bowl. It definitely leaves more up to chance.

How about a new slogan, like "Start fast, finish strong"? Although I'm open to something even punchier.

A very big part of our offensive philosophy is to beat the hell out of the other team with the running game to exhaust them and take over in the second half with superior athleticism. While i understand many fans' frustrations with the appearance of offensive ineffectiveness in the first half, there is much more going on than simply running the ball up the middle every play.

The exceptions were vs Minnesota @ Chicago and @ Miami We were 2-1 in those games.....

I read the OP and was thinking...damn, it seems we scored first in a good portion of our games. Thanks for the validation.

I am not the least bit concerned about our first team and I doubt Pete is either. I think Pete did right in holding a lot of our guys out. We really got a look at the guys that may be of concern as opposed to risking the health of guys like Unger and Miller. What do you need to know about Unger and Miller that you don't already know?

Nobody wants to win it this year more than Pete. As long as we're winning, there will be no sarcasm, or criticism, directed at him and JS because of the Harvin situation. If we falter...believe me, it will be turned into an issue that Pete would rather not have to address. Imo.

Carroll seems to want to begin games with a demoralizing big play. I've seen many Carroll games the last three years begin with either such a big play or a strategy meant to set one up. The trouble is that attempting to manufacture one often prevents a methodical drive and leaves the first quarter offense looking hot-and-cold over the course of a season.

Loved the Hawks way of playing possum last year. I know they can take the lead in the 4th quarter and win against what used to be insurmountable odds for a Seahawks squad. I don't want to know that they can score first or win 30 minutes of football. I want to know if they can finish on top. RW proved to me against some great competition that he can walk away with tough wins.

Love Pete's mantra. I don't care about winning the first 30 minutes of a game. I want RW collecting a game ball at the end.

I think he's saying that sure, finishing well doesn't always make up for a crappy start, but there is nothing that 100% always achieves the most positive outcome.

On another note, the ATL game is probably a poor example to use because really, Wilson and the offense did win that game; it was not FINISHING strong that ended the season.

In fact, it was poor finishes in ARZ, MIA, DET, and ATL, after we had previously held the lead, that really killed us. There were definitely more leads our team ended up losing based on poor finishes than anything last year. Combine that with BFS' great stats about how Seattle tended last year to score first more often than not, and I don't think starting fast is a real issue of concern.

"If given the opportunity without fear of incarceration, I would honestly beat the living **** out of Jerry Rice."

WRT the Atlanta game, Seattle's offense was actually very good in the first half, they were just incredibly unlucky/unclutch. The defense played awful in the first half, but the offense was on a 380 yard pace.

Last edited by kearly on Fri Aug 09, 2013 4:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.

WRT the Atlanta game, Seattle's offense was actually very good in the first half, they were just incredibly unlucky/unclutch. The defense played awful in the first half, but the offense was on a 380 yard pace.

There was some poor game management there as well. I get going for the TD down by a lot, but we left 2 FGs on the field in the 2nd quarter and we lost by 2 points.

As for the OP....No Unger. No Lynch. No Rice. No Miller. No Worries. I'm not going to even get into the individual matchups all those guys usually win. Or the fact that the entire league's starting units were sluggish. Offense is almost always behind defense in the first 2 serious in the 1st preseason game.

If we suck all the way through the preseason, I'll be worried. Until then, it's a work in progress and I just hope the players identify areas of imrovement, and do so. I know Wilson will be doing that.

MontanaHawk05 wrote:Carroll seems to want to begin games with a demoralizing big play. I've seen many Carroll games the last three years begin with either such a big play or a strategy meant to set one up. The trouble is that attempting to manufacture one often prevents a methodical drive and leaves the first quarter offense looking hot-and-cold over the course of a season.

That's a tendency of his that seems counterintuitive. He wants to pound the ball and wear down the defense, but he hastens the end of the drive by going for the big play. But here's the thing: He wants the defense to respect that big play because then they can't just tee off early against Lynch. If they bite too hard on Lynch, Wilson burns them deep. This gives Lyunch more wiggle room and allows Carroll to implement his core strategy of wearing down their defense.

Richard Sherman doesn't just wanna get in your head, he wants to build a vacation home there.

R. Sherman: "I don't want to be an island. I want to be a tourist attraction. You come, I take your money & you go."

The funny thing is that arguably the best opening drive we had all year came against the Rams in St. Louis. That was probably our worst game of the year overall but we did take an early 7-0 lead.

I do agree that we can't afford to give opponents 14 point, 20 point leads like we did in the playoffs and expect to have a successful season, but I think it's too early to worry about that based on a sloppy performance by our starters in one preseason game.

WRT the Atlanta game, Seattle's offense was actually very good in the first half, they were just incredibly unlucky/unclutch. The defense played awful in the first half, but the offense was on a 380 yard pace.

There was some poor game management there as well. I get going for the TD down by a lot, but we left 2 FGs on the field in the 2nd quarter and we lost by 2 points.

As for the OP....No Unger. No Lynch. No Rice. No Miller. No Worries. I'm not going to even get into the individual matchups all those guys usually win. Or the fact that the entire league's starting units were sluggish. Offense is almost always behind defense in the first 2 serious in the 1st preseason game.

If we suck all the way through the preseason, I'll be worried. Until then, it's a work in progress and I just hope the players identify areas of imrovement, and do so. I know Wilson will be doing that.

Hmmm, to be fair though the second FG left on the field is down to RW - get rid of the ball and stop the clock, don't take the sack. Even with a 10 second run-off we'd still have had time to kick the FG, instead we take the sack and the clock runs to 0.The first one was just bad playcalling - they'd just stopped us on 3rd and short and had bottled up our running game right from the start, if you're going for it on 4th down (which was still the right choice), go out with 4 receivers and MRob running out wide, with Wilson's scrambling ability we should convert 4th and 1 99% of the time.